When I Meet the Moon
When I Meet the Moon is a 27-episode Chinese modern romance drama from iQIYI. It premieres on November 5, 2026. It is adapted from a novel by Zhu Yi.
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Is it worth watching?
No verdict yet. We rate a drama once it has finished airing and we have watched it through. How we rate
Fans of Hidden Love and The First Frost who want the last book of Zhu Yi's Nanwu trilogy
The story, without spoilers
What to Expect
We haven't watched this one, and it doesn't air until November 5. This section is based on the official synopsis, the production's announcements and the source novel, and we'll replace it with a verdict once the drama finishes.
The story has two halves. In the first, the girl does the chasing: Yun Li, timid with everyone else, pursues Fu Shize openly, with friends nudging her along. The official synopsis says they get together and then split, because they handle problems in very different ways and because his grief over a friend's death finally comes between them. In the second half, she goes abroad, he pulls himself together and leads a research team, and when she comes back, he is the one doing the chasing. Chinese fans call that turn zhui qi, "chasing the wife."
Expect a gentle, slow romance rather than melodrama, with a family subplot around Yun Li's parents and her younger brother, Yun Ye. Like the earlier Nanwu books, it lives on small, specific moments more than big twists. If the second half sounds like the part you came for, you're in good company: it is the part most readers of the novel talk about.
The Story
Yun Li is so socially anxious that she gets through life behind a camera. She moves to the city of Nanwu for graduate school, partly to prove she can live on her own, and a local VR center invites her to film a video about it. There she runs into Fu Shize, the boy genius whose photo she kept above her bed in high school. He started university at 15. Now he is distant, quiet and carrying something heavy, and she decides, against every instinct, to go after him. When I Meet the Moon (折月亮) is iQIYI's adaptation of Zhu Yi's novel, the last book of the "Nanwu trilogy" that began with Hidden Love and The First Frost. Lin Yi and Lu Yuxiao lead it. It premieres on November 5, 2026, streaming only on iQIYI in mainland China, with Jiangsu TV airing it on television, and it runs 27 episodes.
Release Notes
iQIYI produces the drama with Mo Tian Entertainment (磨铁娱乐), and Zhang Boyu (张博昱) directs. Baidu Baike says it was filmed in Xiamen between August 2 and November 12, 2025, and that iQIYI showed the first trailer at its slate event on April 20, 2026. The poster calls it an iQIYI exclusive in mainland China. On November 1, 2026, iQIYI put it on its November slate without a day. The production announced the date on November 2: it premieres on November 5, streaming only on iQIYI in mainland China, with Jiangsu TV holding the TV premiere, and it runs 27 episodes. Jiangsu TV says on its Weibo that it airs the drama every night at 7:30 p.m. Beijing time in its Xingfu Theater (幸福剧场) slot. iQ.com, iQIYI's international site, shows November 5 as the release date in the US and lets you reserve it. As of November 3, iQIYI hadn't said how many episodes it releases each day or at what time, so we can't estimate the finale yet. An earlier report of November 27 turned out to be wrong.
Does When I Meet the Moon have a happy ending?
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In Brief
Ending spoilerShow the ending in brief
The drama premieres on November 5, so there's no ending yet. Its official synopsis says Yun Li and Fu Shize break up, spend time apart, and finally clear up their misunderstandings and get back together. We'll update this section after the finale.
Full Ending Explained
Full spoilersShow the full ending
The drama's ending hasn't aired, and we won't guess at details beyond what iQIYI has published. If you want to know how the book ends, see the Novel Ending section below. We'll replace this with a full account once the last episode is out.
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Cast and characters
Also starring
- Yun Li (Lu Yuxiao): a graduate student and video uploader, painfully shy in person and surprisingly brave once she decides what she wants.
- Fu Shize (Lin Yi): a former prodigy who skipped grades, started university at 15 and was Nanwu's top science scorer in the national college entrance exam. Cold on the surface, and still blaming himself for a close friend's death.
- Yun Ye (Zhao Penghao): Yun Li's younger brother, whose storyline with Yin Yunyi (Pei Jiaxin) runs alongside the main romance.
- Tang Lin (Lu Yangyang), Fu Zhengchu (Li Geyang) and Yin Yucheng (Huang Shengchi): the main supporting roles, billed just below the leads. iQIYI hasn't published who they are to the couple, and we'll add that once the drama airs.
The novel behind it
The drama adapts Zhe Yue Liang (折月亮) by Zhu Yi (竹已), a modern romance published on JJWXC. It is the third book set in the fictional city of Nanwu, after Hidden Love (偷偷藏不住) and The First Frost (难哄), both of which became hit dramas on Youku. The three books share a setting and a tone, not a plot, so you don't need the earlier ones to follow this story. Seven Seas publishes Hidden Love in English, but we haven't found an official English edition of this one.
Differences from the Novel
Ending spoilerShow the differences
We can't compare yet. The synopsis iQIYI published follows the book's outline closely: the VR center, the reunion with a high-school crush, the breakup, the years apart and the reversal. We'll note changes once episodes air.
Novel Ending
Full spoilersShow how the novel ends
Ending spoilerReveal how the novel ends
The novel ends happily. After the breakup and Yun Li's time abroad, Fu Shize faces the grief he has been avoiding and pursues her openly when she returns, and the two get back together for good. The official drama synopsis describes the same ending.
- Original title
- 折月亮
- Author
- Zhu Yi 竹已
- First published
- JJWXC
- In English
- No official translation that we know of
Words and customs you'll hear
Nanwu
Nanwu (南芜) isn't a real city. Zhu Yi invented it for all three books, and fans call them the Nanwu trilogy for that reason. The drama was filmed in Xiamen, the coastal city in Fujian, from August to November 2025.
Video uploaders
Yun Li's job is what Chinese calls an UP zhu (UP主), from "upload": a creator on video sites such as Bilibili. It is a common job for modern drama heroines, and here it gives a shy character a reason to talk to strangers on camera.
The top scorer
Fu Shize's backstory leans on a very Chinese kind of fame. Each province names a zhuangyuan (状元), the top scorer in the national college entrance exam, the gaokao, and local media treat them like celebrities. The word originally meant the top candidate in the imperial exams.
When I Meet the Moon FAQ
When does When I Meet the Moon come out?
It premieres on November 5, 2026. In China it streams on iQIYI, and Jiangsu TV airs it nightly at 7:30 p.m. Beijing time (6:30 a.m. Eastern). iQ.com, iQIYI's international site, lists November 5 too. iQIYI hasn't said how many episodes come out each day, so the finale date isn't known yet.
Where can I watch When I Meet the Moon?
It is an iQIYI production, so outside mainland China it should stream on iQ.com and the iQIYI app. iQ.com listed it as Coming Soon in the US, UK, Canada and Australia on October 29, 2026, and now shows a November 5 release in the US. Until episodes are out, we don't know which will be free.
How many episodes does When I Meet the Moon have?
27 episodes, according to the production's November 2 announcement. iQ.com's page data also gives 27 as the series total, though its listing has shown 28, probably counting a preview. Episode length hasn't been announced. Lin Yi and Lu Yuxiao lead the cast.
Who is in the cast of When I Meet the Moon?
Lin Yi plays Fu Shize and Lu Yuxiao plays Yun Li. Lu Yangyang and Li Geyang are billed next, with Huang Shengchi, Huang Tingting and Xie Binbin in guest-star roles and Zhao Penghao and Pei Jiaxin also starring. Lin Yi and Huang Shengchi worked together on Derailment.
Does When I Meet the Moon have a happy ending?
SpoilerShow the answer
Minor spoilerReveal what we know
The drama hasn't aired, but both the official synopsis and the novel end with Yun Li and Fu Shize back together after their breakup and years apart. We'll confirm it here once the final episode is out.
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